Skin to Bone
by komaeda
Summary: When your time comes to die, sing your death song and die like a hero going home.
1. what would you do to live?

this fic is basically a summation of: i don't trust joanne to write the marauders era story we deserve.

this is canon-compliant so if you see anything totally left field it's a mistake on my part. because i'm dumb. also also also this story isn't entirely in chronological order, but it isn't too difficult to tell where each part is set.

i can't remember what else i wanted to say other than that the cover image for this story was made by domenic bahmann!

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1\. (The first conversation.)

The pub is well-lit and full of cheerful people, and it is the first bit of evidence Lily has seen that not everything on this earth is going to hell. Each table is a site for personal and political discourse, and the air is rich with the smell of fried fish and chips.

She sits in a booth with her mother next to a drafty window. Petunia is nowhere to be seen, but Lily supposes she shouldn't have expected anything more. She hasn't spoken properly to her sister since she married that awful man, but if Petunia's happy, Lily can't say much more.

It's not as if they hate each other – though, with the way Petunia speaks to her, Lily wouldn't rule it out.

"Well," Lily starts, though she's unsure of what else to say. "I bought myself an owl."

"Oh?" Her mother says with interest. "I'm sure that'll make things easier. Trying to work the post was absolutely dreadful, though I'd much prefer if you kept it simple for us. The normal way can't be much slower than yours."

Lily dips her chip into the ketchup with a small smile. "Depends on the weather, I suppose. Mary and I tried to test it out that one time, remember?"

Her mother laughs a little at the memory. "Yes, well, I'd rather not have a repeat of that. Petunia wouldn't shut up about the mess that owl made of the window."

There is a long, heavy pause, though Lily thinks that might just be in her head. Her mother has always been unaware of how deep the jagged scar lies between the two sisters, largely due to the fact that Petunia won't own up to her own longings. It's no secret that she wants so desperately to be able to do the things Lily does, and that wish both scares and fascinates Petunia.

But Lily has always been the bigger man, and asks, "how is she these days?"

"Oh, she's good. She and Vernon are still trying for a baby, but until then it's just furniture decorating and getting to know the neighbours."

Lily nods. "And is Vernon still working at that –"

"Drill company, now."

"Oh. Well. Good for him." Her thumb poises over her lower lip. She is light in nerves and heavy in contemplation. "Listen, mum, there's something I have to tell you."

"Are you pregnant?"

Lily grins despite herself. "No, Merlin, mum. No." She laughs at the bewilderment on her mother's face, and she longs to say something worth keeping that expression there. But she has to say what she has to say while the words are trying to jump up her throat. "Do you remember that thing I've been telling you about – the thing going on in my world?"

She nods.

"We're joining the fight. I – I might not be able to talk to you for a while. It might be too hard."

Whatever Lily had expected, it had not been the look of determination that crosses over her mother's face like a shadow, an acceptance that Lily can tell has been growing for a long, long time.

"Where will you go?"

"Nowhere, I don't think. I don't know. I'm not, er, high-ranking enough to know all the details, and I'm pretty sure it all goes by a daily basis anyway. I'll probably still be here. It's just — it's going to be dangerous."

"Dangerous," her mother echoes.

She hesitates. "They're still killing muggles and muggleborns. You'll be okay," she adds quickly, "I'll cast more protection spells around the house. We can move you if things get worse."

"You'll write when you can, won't you?"

"Of course." Lily smiles a little. "Aren't you going to try talk me out of it?"

"I couldn't talk you out of putting itching powder on Nancy Soper's pants after that time she called you out in the playground. How could I ever expect to talk you out of this?"

2\. (The phoenix.)

Lily doesn't know when this war began.

Maybe it was when she had received her Hogwarts letter in the middle of breakfast; because a war began then, when Petunia had decided her little sister was a freak. Or maybe it was in her sixth year of Hogwarts, when Davey Gudgeon's mother went missing, only to be found dead three weeks later. Or perhaps it was when Lily had kissed goodbye to her dreams in the wizarding world, and signed up to make it better.

Maybe it is bigger than her. It could have begun with the first muggle-born, or maybe even the start of time itself. Maybe it began with the first act of love, because without love, there can be no evil.

All she knows is that there is a war around her, a world crumbling at her feet, and she'll be damned if she doesn't try to stop it. That with Mary crying into her hands for her parents beside her, _this_ is the start of war.

3\. (First period transfiguration could have gone better, and it could have gone a lot worse.)

James is sitting beside her, leaning back against his chair with insolence. This is the version he prepares for Hogwarts, for his teachers, and sometimes, for Sirius. Except Sirius is not the one he is partnered up with today.

Five minutes earlier, Professor McGonagall had told them to come forward and draw names to partner up with. Lily had known it would be more probable to draw the name of a friend than someone she's supposed to be avoiding, but bad luck has always relied on perfect timing, so of course the name on the slip of parchment should contain a name from the latter category.

Chairs slide against the floor as people move places, books slam against the work-desks, and Lily could close her eyes and still see it in perfect clarity.

"Are we supposed to quiz each other?" James asks, as if Lily's standoffishness is charming.

"Is there any point?" She asks. "Did you even do the reading?"

"Are you trying to become Professor McGonagall or something?"

"Or something. You didn't answer my question, you know."

"Is that question apart of the quiz? Is this 20 questions? What colour is your–"

" _James_."

"–dress for Hogsmeade?"

Heat colours Lily's cheeks. He flutters his dusty lashes at her.

"You're a prat."

"You're so sweet."

Lily has noticed something about James that has gotten under her skin. A lot of somethings, actually. The curve of his neck, the bones in his wrist, the little flash of his hipbones when he raises his arms and his jeans are hanging just a little too low. But worst of all is the fact that hidden under a thick coating of immaturity, there's a genuinely nice person underneath. It's like there are so many Potters — moody Potter, joking Potter, nice Potter, smart Potter, prat Potter, to name a few — and there's hardly any need for him to make a distinction between them. It's irritating and charming all at once.

"The sake of your class grade is sitting on this question, Evans."

"Oh, come off it. What are you trying to do?"

"Ask you to Hogsmeade, of course."

"You — That's not funny."

He raises his brows, and Lily realises all roads are leading to her humiliation. She sends a desperate glance across the classroom to Marlene, who's too busy chatting to Remus to catch her eye.

"I wasn't joking, you know," he says quite lightly, "but okay. What are we supposed to be quizzing each other on then?"

"You are not serious."

"No, you're right. I'm James."

"Potter," she growls.

He holds up his hands in surrender. "I was under the impression that I was serious – not Sirius. What's your reasoning?"

"You're a jerk!" The words rush out before she can stop them. As if it'll help, she adds, "sorry, but you are. This has to be some kind of joke. You've been godawful to me for years — though lately you've been quite nice, and it's weird and disturbing and actually quite pleasant — and weren't you supposed to be fancying Andrea McCarthy?"

"Are you done word vomiting on my lap?" He grins, and Lily doesn't understand why he looks so happy. "Since when have you cared about who I fancy?"

"I don't." Her burning face says otherwise.

"When you're done deciding whether or not I'm joking, let me know what colour your dress is going to be so I can match appropriately. And if, for whatever reason that reflects entirely on you and not on me, you don't want to go together, let me know via Peter. He always knows how to soften the blow."

"And why would we need to match outfits?"

She watches his throat move as he swallows. "Isn't that what all hopeless romantics do?"

"No. And do I have to wear a dress? What if it's cold?"

"Well, Evans, I'm not here to think for you. What do girls wear when they're cold?"

She covers her laugh with her hand. "You're not doing a very good job at this asking out thing."

"No, I'm really not. If you could keep the details to yourself, that'd be brilliant, and if you _are_ forced to tell people, lie and talk about how suave I was and how impressed you were."

Lily shakes her head, the remnants of laughter still on her lips. "I'll be sure to."

Professor McGonagall chooses this moment to sweep by. "If you would kindly return to discussing Jigger's seven laws on human transfiguration, Miss Evans."

"If you were anyone else, you'd definitely be in trouble," James tuts as Professor McGonagall goes on to explain to Peter Pettigrew that no, you can not transfigure abs onto yourself, and you would be a fool to even try. "Blatant favouritism. That, or we just got McGonagall's blessing."

4\. (Dare to be stupid.)

Dorcas Meadowes had gotten reasonable grades in school. She isn't a genius, and she'll never pretend to be, but she is most knowledgable by way of magazine articles, and exceptional at organising and management.

That is why Dorcas stands next to Lily at the meeting, clutching the little pink fluffy pen that is basically an extension of her at this point. Her dark, curly hair – shorter now than it was at school – frames her face nicely.

"Right, well, I know we're a little short on numbers," Dorcas's mild voice says, "but we can make this work. Um, you'll all be staying here until Kingsley comes back from his, er, stake-out. Thing."

No one looks unperturbed by Dorcas's unease. Lily supposes they're all too busy thinking about what they're going to do, which is to say, smuggle people out of Britain. It's a fairly standard operation, but it's not without its risks. It's also the first mission for many of them.

Lily looks around, though not at the other Order members. There are no pictures hanging on the wall, no bumps or scrapes with a story; only emptiness. She thinks she may have gotten to used to the comforts of her own home.

This is war.

"Lily?" Dorcas says quietly. "Are you alright?"

She blinks and turns her head to look at Dorcas. "Yes? Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason that I can think of."

Lily fights the urge to smile. "Nothing to do with the fact that we're about to go and risk our lives for some people we've never met?"

"Nothing to do with that." Dorcas agrees quietly. "Though it's not _really_ a dangerous mission. If the Death Eaters are anything like they were at school, they're about as smart as me."

"You throw a good hex," Lily points out.

"Only when I don't mean to."

"Well, so long as you're pointing your wand at their side..."

Dorcas's lips quirk upwards.

5\. (Chasing the dragon.)

"Well, Professor, I know I'd like to become a potions teacher here some day." She flushes. "I'm not saying I'd like to kick Professor Slughorn from the job, just that I know I want to end up back here one day. I don't know what I'd like to do in the mean time. A bit of everything?"

"Well, that's certainly an admirable ambition." Professor Mcgonagall replies, smiling slightly. "I'm sure Horace would be thrilled to hear it. With your grades, you're in a good position, Miss Evans. Take a biscuit."

Lily blinks, but does as she's told.

"There are pamphlets I have to give you running over difference career options and what you have to do to get into each one. You should take a good look at them, though something to do with potions would be the most sensible route." She smooths out her robes, and Lily nods. "Let me know how you get along."

She stands, and so does Lily.

"Thank you, Professor."

Professor McGonagall smiles. "I'm sure I am not the only one who looks forward to seeing you in the staff some day."

6\. (There are some secrets you will take to the grave.)

"They Obliviate me, sometimes." Dorcas admits. Her words are so soft that the wind outside almost destroys them, and there is something like melancholy painted on her light brown face. "I told them there's no point letting me keep plans in my head when I don't know what I'd do if I'm tortured. I need the space, anyway. Less clutter."

"I thought too many memory charms could destroy your memory?"

"There's not much left to destroy at this point." Dorcas's laugh is like pitters of rain. "That's mostly if it's used with ill intentions, and used a lot. There are precautions I can take if I know ahead of time. Besides, it's not like they're jumping out from behind bins every three minutes to wipe my memory."

Lily feels horrified, like the feeling's coiled around her stomach. "You're handling this so well, though."

"I'm not. I'm scared shitless."

"That's not very comforting."

She wants Dorcas to laugh, to wipe that expression off her face, but all Dorcas does is hug the jumper she's using as a pillow closer to her chest. "I miss Marlene and Mary."

Lily feels a phantom of that sensation again, that strange grief. "They'll be alright. We'll probably see them in the next rotation."

"I'm sick of rotations," Dorcas whines. "I'm sick of not having my own place. I'm – I'm sick of organising people's deaths. I always feel like it's my fault, like if I had picked someone else, things might've gone okay –"

"Dorcas, it's not your fault." Lily says with conviction. "It's not, okay? It's the Death Eaters', and You-Know-Who's, and anyone who's stupid enough to pick the wrong side. You're not killing anyone."

"Do you think we will?" Dorcas whispers with fear. "Do you think we'll have to kill people?"

"Only those who deserve it."

But the thought makes her sick.

7\. (Louder than thunder.)

Lily is a hurricane lurking slightly offshore, and it is only a matter of time before something sets her off.

"Lily. Lily, please, you can't keep ignoring me."

That something comes by the name Severus Snape.

She whirls on her heels, snatching at the chance to blow off some steam and not at all in the slightest sorry that it has to be at Snape — at least not yet, anyway.

"Oh yes I can," she snaps. "What I do is no concern of yours, Severus. You lost that privilege."

"Please, Lily, I had to. They'd do worse to you if I hadn't."

"Oh, bully for you. It serves you right for hanging out with a bunch of blood-purists in the first place. What do you when you all get together to make fun of mudbloods? When they make plans to attack us? Do you join in, or do you just sit in silence?" She doesn't even know which is worse.

"Lily," he says a little bit louder, desperation oozing out of him, "you don't understand—"

"I don't understand? You're kidding, right? Why should I empathise with you, when you've never even tried to do the same with me?"

"The word just slipped out, okay? And I had to hex you — I had to protect you."

"I do not need _you_ to protect me! I can protect myself! And don't you see the problem? You say it around everyone else so much that when you're angry you just default to slurs!" The bell to signal the end of the period rings, but she pays it no mind. "I don't believe you, Severus. You only care about me because no one else does."

"That's not true, Lily, you know it's not." He starts forward, but she takes a step away from him. "I'll talk to them. I'll tell them to leave you alone."

"You're not getting it!" She almost laughs with disbelief. "You refuse to understand! You've made your choice. Let me make mine."

The crowd of students move impassively around them, and Lily is more than happy to fade into it.

8\. (Being in love should have been enough. It should have counted for something.)

Hogsmeade in the summer makes Lily feel gauzy and immaterial, like if a wind picked up she could just float away. Add that feeling on top of the butterflies in her stomach, and it makes for a pleasantly twisted sensation.

Potter - James - had told her to meet him at the Three Broomsticks rather than walk into Hogsmeade together, which she is grateful for, because it allows time for a pep talk.

"Boys like it when you laugh at everything they say," says Mary, a short witch with rosy cheeks. They walk side-by-side, the three of them, with their arms linked. "They're too stupid to read emotional energy."

"You don't have to do anything, Lils." Marlene says sensibly, because tall and pretty girls like Marlene can make anything sound sensible. "You've already snatched him just by being an absolute fire-breathing dragon. Just being yourself is sure to trick him into thinking he's made the right decision."

"You two are absolutely useless. How is it that you've both dated before?"

Marlene doesn't miss a beat. "Our good looks, of course."

They all laugh.

"What if he tries to kiss you?" Mary teases, nudging Lily with her shoulder.

"Oh, don't," Lily groans, "I don't - I've never—"

"You so have!" Mary cries. "You snogged Marlene. I was there!"

"That wasn't a proper kiss, though! It only lasted a second."

" _And_ there was no tongue." Marlene says slyly.

"Dorcas should be here to see our little Lily-Flower off." Mary coos before Lily has the chance to say anything more. "Off to get her first proper snog."

Marlene says, "I think it's really unfair that Professor McGonagall gave her that detention. She was just trying to help."

"She only gave Dorcas one to discourage her from trying to help again," Lily points out.

"Yeah, well, I would too if Dorcas's definition of helping involves hexing someone's toenails off." Marlene snorts. "Poor Reginald Cattermole. Serves him right for telling everyone about his little fungal problem at breakfast."

They make it to the line of shops, and Mary tugs at Lily's elbow and breaks away from the arm-chain. "Put this on." She sticks a hand into her own dress's pocket and pulls out a tube of lipgloss.

Lily takes it, flicking Mary a nervous smile.

"Now remember, if you run out of flirting tactics, just flash him your tits and smile prettily."

"Mary Macdonald!" Lily gasps with laughter. "This is the last time I'm taking your advice."

"But not the last time you take her lipgloss." Marlene says wryly. "Who knows where that's been?"

"Oh, ew!" Lily tries to push the lipgloss back towards a laughing Mary.

"Calm down, cootie-police! It's uncontaminated – for now." Her laugh turns wicked, and the three girls grin at each other. Mary, surprisingly, is the first to straighten up, but only because – "Don't look now, but Potter's here!"

Lily doesn't heed Mary's warning, and turns to see James coming towards them with a sheepish grin. He shows off all his brown skin and skinny arms in a nice, red polo shirt, and Lily has half the mind to believe his mother picked it out for him, because Lily has met Euphemia, and to say the woman is stylish would be an understatement.

But that's not the point. The point is that James Potter looks _good_ , and Lily is a little starstruck.

9\. (This, at least, is up to me.)

She has been here for several days and several more. The safe houses of the Order are all beginning to blur together. Lily hardly spends enough time in one to remember the floor plan, let alone the differences between them all.

At least this one has a yard. As far as she knows, the last one she was at didn't have one.

She wanders out onto it, feeling the grass beneath her bare feet. There is the yellow glow of an early summer's day, though it doesn't feel like summer at all. Summer should be spent at home, under the trees with Severus or on the swings with Petunia, helping her mother bake or getting soaked while washing her father's car.

It's been a very long time since she'd done all of those things in one succession, though. She hasn't spoken to Severus since she'd graduated. She hasn't held a satisfying conversation with Petunia a long time before that. She hasn't spoken to her father since she was twelve, on account of him dying of lung cancer.

She is scared, though no one knows it.

No one knows what beliefs have taken who anymore – as if people wore their beliefs on their sleeves in the first place. Lily knows her place is here, in the Order, in and out of safe houses, next to James, next to her friends; but it still surprises her to see where the faces she'd grown up with decide their place is too.

So she's been reading a lot. She thinks it might help her adjust. But every now and then she ends up just reading the same paragraph over and over, staring at the lines of black for hours. This new bleak stretch of nothing makes her think of the time before the war, when she knew it was coming, but not fully grasping it.

She's stuck on this one page of _These Happy Golden Years_ , a book Petunia would say Lily's far too old to be reading, but she loves nonetheless, when a voice says, "afternoon, Evans."

"Hello, Sirius," she says cooly without tearing her gaze from her book.

"Oh, playing hard to get, are we?"

She fights a losing battle against the smile straining against her cheeks. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't think I've ever seen you not standing in front of a mirror."

"Well, you'd have to look at me to see me and say that."

She does so with a grin. "Looking as chuffed as always, I see. How have you been?" She moves her legs so that Sirius can take the seat next to her. They are sitting on an old couch that Lily and Gideon Prewett had moved out onto the deck, because it's not like anyone's going to care anymore. She's been alternating between the shade and the sunshine all day.

"You know, fighting Death Eaters by day, making love by night –"

"Ew," Lily interrupts, scrunching her nose. "There are some things I really do not want to know, and that's one of them."

Sirius leans back with his arms folded behind his head. "What are you playing chaste for? Don't think I didn't notice you and James disappearing all through seventh year. It's not like he didn't talk about it, either. He really wanted his comeuppance on Peter."

"I still say good on Peter, if only to put you all in your places. Your heads were getting too big, anyway."

Unbothered, Sirius muses, "I still don't know how he got Agatha Aubrey to sleep with him."

"Don't ask me. She was a right nag about it, though. She kept trying to get us to ask about it."

"And did you?"

"Of course not. The only question any of us had is 'how the fuck did _that_ happen'?"

They both sit in contemplative silence.

Then, "have you heard from James lately?"

Lily bites the insides of her cheeks. "Not since last week. How is he?"

"Pining after you. What else would he be doing?"

"At least he's consistent." Lily laughs. "And how are you really?"

Sirius shrugs with careless ease. "Fine. You?"

"Fine." They both know that's a lie, but Sirius doesn't particularly care for deep meaningful conversations unless he can't help it, so he doesn't press. "You're staying with James still, aren't you? What are you doing here?"

"I'm helping with the patrol tonight, same as you. I thought we'd have more people with us," he looks around the empty room.

"Everyone has their own little hiding places," Lily explains. "We're all a bit sick of each other at this point." They all want their little snatches of peace, because it is the most beautiful thing they have ever known. "I thought I'd take advantage of the fact that they're all hiding in their rooms to sit out here until showtime."

Sirius nods. "Charming."

They sit in silence for the rest of the afternoon.

10\. (We're holding onto heaven.)

"Mum and dad want to buy us a house."

"They want to – oh, James, _no_."

James looks up from his book – one that Lily had said she'd liked, funnily enough – grinning a little. They are in another safe house, though it's not like James doesn't have a home to go back to. Euphemia had insisted that Lily come and stay with them, because graduating hasn't stopped Sirius from having his own room at the Potters still, but Lily hadn't felt ready; both to preserve her so-called 'independence', and because she had been torn between dedicating herself to a growing war and the choice of comfort.

Living with James would have just made going back to the Order all the more harder.

Lily stares at him, slightly horrified. "No, James. That's too much. I can't just –"

"They adore you, Lily. Mum probably loves you more than I do. Scratch that, actually, she definitely loves you more than I do. It's her own personal goal to make you her daughter-in-law. The money's nothing to them, anyway."

James Potter had been born to a woman with a cursed womb, and had been doted on accordingly. He wants for nothing, and on the off-chance that he ever _does_ want something, all he has to do is ask. Lily, on the other hand, had grown up in a poor town that her sister couldn't wait to see in a rearview mirror, and where everyone knows everyone. It is a good place to be if you like gossip that comes in the form of scandalous church sales and the occasional elopement between two village kids.

"But it's _everything_ to me."

"And you say I'm melodramatic." He closes his book, shifting in his seat to face her properly and props his head against the armrest and looks ridiculous doing so. "You can get that kitten you wanted."

"But I can't just accept it out of nowhere. They'll probably buy us an island trying to outdo themselves for a birthday present."

"Well, we'll just say the house is a wedding present."

Lily has two immediate thoughts about this. The first being _is James about to do what I think he's about to do?_ And the other is _I think I would quite like that if he were_.

"A what?"

"People get bought houses as wedding presents all the time." He says slowly, as if talking to a child.

"I don't know what world you're living in."

James sits up straighter. He looks at her, in her loose pants and her big, messy bun, and all the flyaway, wispy ringlets floating off her forehead. She is beautiful, and he wants to do something dramatic. "Your world, my world, it's the same thing at this point. Aren't you sick of never staying in the same place? Don't you want to call somewhere home again?"

"Well, yes, but are you just saying this so you can live out your sixteen-year-old fantasy of marrying young and passing on our genes as soon as possible?"

James has always lived by the idea that if you can't be a good example, you should be a terrible warning. "Would it be so bad if I were?"

She falters. "I think I'd always imagined this to be more romantic. If you're doing what I think you're doing." She narrows her eyes. "Are you?"

James's hand goes to his hair, and he ruffles the back of it. "I don't have a ring or anything. In my head I did this on a balcony overlooking Paris or something, even though the French would probably purposefully fuck it up, because French people always like to do stuff like that."

Lily sucks in a breath and holds it. Normally she'd have some quip on her tongue – banter with James is like second-nature to her – but she's, understandably, been thrown off her groove. "You – um – what's happening right now?"

James grins, and he is all sunshine and nerves. "I'm asking you to marry me, of course."

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	2. les grandes marches

massive thank you to himi! my love! and all my friends who put up with me saying anything ever about this fic. send me potential scene prompts over on tadasgay or shikinami on tumblr

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11\. (Mistakes aren't always regrets.)

On the day that Lily Evans meets her boyfriend's mother for the first time - properly, not just an awkward encounter in the great hall - it is a bright, sunny day despite the fact that it is the beginning of April. The sun lights up the grounds of the Potter manor as well as James's cheeks, and Lily can only imagine what it would look like in every other season of the year.

"Home sweet home," James says, just to see Lily smile. He shoves his hands deeper into his pockets, adopting a light stroll along the path leading to the front door as Lily marvels at the ridiculously grand hedges that are trimmed to look like animals.

"Your mother is amazing. Ridiculous and rich, but amazing."

"You never compliment me like that." He places a hand to his chest, mock-hurt.

Lily makes a strange noise that James takes for a laugh. "You don't deserve compliments. Your head is big enough as it is."

James cants his head in consideration. "I guess that's true. Don't say that in front of my mother, though, she'll just agree with you and offer you a summer cottage in Wales."

"You make that sound like a bad thing." She says dryly.

"You're here!" Interrupts a voice from the front step. The voice is attached to an old woman who is effortlessly dressed to the nines. She throws her arms wide, and when James makes a start towards her, she bats him away gently. "Why would I want to hug you? I hug you all the time. Oh, Lily, come here. How is it possible you keep getting more and more beautiful?"

Lily blushes, accepting her embrace, partly because it's polite and partly because Euphemia just looks so happy. "You're looking as lovely as ever, Euphemia."

"Nonsense. No compliments for me until I'm done with you. James, show her to the living room while I make the tea."

"Yes, mum." James says dully, linking his arm through Lily's and stepping through the door. James would be worried about all of Euphemia's doting if he hadn't inherited the same trait from her. "It's not as if she's already had the tea waiting for us." He says low enough for just Lily to hear. Then, "this is the hallway," he announces like a tour guide showing off a three-headed dragon, "which is where we keep our coats and our wills to live." He leads her forward, stopping at a set of pristine glass doors. "This is the living room, which we live our empty, loveless lives. You'll get the rest of the tour when mum wants us to go off and forincate."

Lily laughs as he slides the doors open. "I thought you liked it here." She teases. "Since when did this place become a hellhole of misery and trimmed leaf decorations?"

"He loves it. He's just sulking because I like you more." Euphemia calls from down the hall.

"She's not wrong," James concedes. He makes a sweeping gesture of the living room, which is bathed in golds and creams. Lily quite happily takes a seat on the ornate sofa, and James plops down beside her. He takes her hand and laces their fingers together.

"So," Lily says.

"So," says James.

"Is this going to be weird?"

"Probably. Want a cherry drop?"

"Alright." She reaches over to take one from the little golden tin on the coffee table with her free hand. "You know, I can't really imagine you sitting in here."

"I'm sitting in here right now, aren't I?"

"No, you're just a figment of my imagination. Whenever I try to picture you sitting here in any other scenario, your hair's slicked back with spit and grease and you're wearing some prancy outfit." She doesn't point out that the description sounds a lot like Severus, who coincidentally always looks like the last time he bathed was when he was born.

"So you're daydreaming about some other bloke?"

"Yeah, and his breath smells better than yours."

"Take that back," he says, mock-offended.

Euphemia walks in carrying a tray of tea, and Lily has half the mind to think that she was just standing out of sight and waiting for the right time to enter. "We don't have house elves around here," she says in explanation of something Lily doesn't quite get. She shoots James a quizzical look on the sly, and he waves his hands as if to say it's classic Euphemia behaviour. "Sugar?"

"Yes please."

"Me too." Pipes James.

"Oh yes, because in the month you've been gone I've forgotten how you take your tea. Biscuit, Lily? They're ginger."

"Lily's ginger," James adds.

Euphemia looks at him as if he's a toddler who's just recited Humpty Dumpty. "Thank you for that, James. If you're so desperate to be helpful, why don't you grab us some serviettes?"

James opens his mouth to protest but decides against it. He stands and walks backwards through the doorway, mouthing his apologies to Lily.

Lily thinks being stuck alone in a room with Euphemia Potter should be a nightmare, but she doesn't know how wrong she is until they quickly end up chatting about every embarrassing moment in James's life starting from the tender age of zero. She's always known that logically the greatest source of juicy gossip concerning James should be from his own mother, but she never realised just how true the sentiment rings until they're both giggling over the time he tried to set up his own muggle television and almost set the whole house on fire. Euphemia shoos James from the room every time he comes back to fetch this or that.

"We thought I'd die in childbirth," Euphemia says happily when their tea is at the dregs and Lily has sucked on one too many sour cherry drops. Euphemia looks at James, who has taken to just hovering in the doorway, and adds just as cheerfully, "sometimes I wish I had."

"Jee, thanks."

"But you still went through it anyway?" Lily asks. Something about Euphemia has Lily wanting to confess her own desire for a child, but she's well aware that James is standing right there and that she's only just properly met Euphemia (as if that's stopped Euphemia from telling Lily a detailed account of her painful periods). Even if she could, any words she'd say just feel wrong on her tongue.

"He was the closest I was going to get to having a child." Euphemia explains. "It's a shame it had to be him and not some beautiful little girl, but I'll take what I can get. Besides, I knew this little shit wouldn't be able to kill me."

"How so?"

"I'm his mother, aren't I?" She laughs. "Mother always knows best and all that. James, why are you standing? Come and sit down."

James lets out an over-exaggerated sigh and sits down next to Lily again, making sure to wiggle around until he's satisfied that Euphemia isn't going to kick him out.

"So," Euphemia says.

"So," says James.

"I'm getting a bit of déjà vu here." Lily remarks.

"You know what I think?" James asks.

"That is an impossible question," Lily replies at the same time as Euphemia resolutely says, "no."

"I think that introducing the two of you was either my best idea yet, or," he pauses on the word, a self-appreciating sort of smile on his lips, "my worst."

* * *

12\. (I'd rather die terrified than live forever.)

There is an eerie silence that greets Lily when she arrives back at the safe house, and Lily knows something is wrong even before Sirius walks out of the makeshift sitting room, pale-faced and clammy.

"What's wrong?"

"Remus," he croaks out. He tries to take a moment to clear his throat, and his hand goes to his hair in a hopeless and lost action. "Injured. He's lost a lot of blood. Fenwick's dead."

Lily thinks Sirius should be livid, that anger should be hot in his eyes, and that nothing is more heartbreaking than watching Sirius fall to pieces. She walks forward to grab his shoulders, looking at him sturdily. "What happened? Are you alright?"

He leans forward to rest his forehead against Lily's, because Sirius never does hugs when he needs one. "What makes you think I know? They never tell us anything."

"He'll be alright," she says soothingly, as if a million thoughts aren't racing through her mind, slamming against the walls of her brain and trying to drown her in paranoid thoughts. She closes her eyes. "He's made of strong stuff."

It is not until that night when she lies awake in bed, with Sirius's back to hers, that she really lets herself think of Benjy. She thinks of waving to him across the Great Hall, of Benjy lending her his transfiguration notes when she was sick one week, of him clumsily asking her to dance with her in third year. People die in wars, she knows this, and she has lost her father and Mary's parents, but it has never hit her this hard until now.

She cries herself to sleep for the rest of the week.

* * *

13\. (Don't try this at home.)

Lily gets a summer job at one of the six stores in her town, which doesn't really count because it's a post office.

She is in halfway through the summer between fourth and fifth year, and she knows that realistically she can't just waste her summer lying around in the garden and trying to do elaborate hairstyles on herself. She's also growing more and more aware of just how much her school books cost, and it's not just because of all of Petunia's not so subtle hints at the kitchen island every other day.

They are relying on one income now, and she can't let her mother overwork herself until she ends up in the same place as her father.

So Lily sits behind the counter at the post office, her hair sitting atop her head in a beautiful red crown. It is one of the simpler hairstyles she's learned to do, but she likes it because everyone thinks it must have taken a lot of effort, even though it consists of two regular braids and a lot of butterfly clips.

The building of the post office itself is a relic, and would probably be put in as a historical building if it weren't sitting in the middle of Cokeworth, a town that means nothing to no one. The air feels a bit recycled in there, but other than that it's pretty enjoyable. At the very least, it means she gets to send constant letters to Mary the muggle way for a discounted price.

She's just finished sealing an envelope to Mary, in which Lily is desperately trying to convince her to watch the Star Wars movies, when the bell above the door rings. She looks up, eyes wide with guilt as if she's doing something wrong.

The man who walks in is not old, maybe in his early-twenties, and he is handsome in a way that needs a bit of work from the viewer. His cheekbones are a little too sharp, too pointed, and something about him is off-center. It could just be his soul, but Lily is prepared to give a complete stranger the benefit of the doubt. At the very least, he's not likely to murder her. Just post a letter.

"Hi," she smiles politely, because she is paid to do so and because she is a nice person in general. "What can I do for you?"

"I'd like to buy a stamp."

His lack of manners only bothers her a little bit.

"Sure! Just one?"

He makes a vague noise of assent. She doesn't really know what it means, so she pulls out a pad of stamps instead. He takes a moment to look at the postcards on the side of the wall curiously – Cokeworth! The town where nothing goes on, ever! – and he doesn't even break his gaze with it as he walks toward the counter. Lily gets the impression that he doesn't talk or smile much, but then again, she's heard too many horror stories from other people in customer service for it to count.

"Anything else I can do for you?"

The man shakes his head. She tells him the price, slipping the pad of stamps closer to him. He fumbles in his pockets for a second, and when something big and round and shiny slips out of it, Lily's eyes are wide.

"Is that–"

He thrusts the appropriate amount of muggle money towards her at the same time as his foot covers the Galleon. "Thanks." He mutters, snatching the stamps and then the Galleon off the floor. He hurries out the door.

Lily can't wrap her head around it – another wizard in Cokeworth? It feels almost as if a rug has been pulled from underneath her, like the very foundation of her childhood has been flipped on its head. She and Severus had always felt special for it, like it was them against the world, because the only other magical person there was his mother, and she hadn't been good for much.

She never sees the man again, and she won't admit to seeking him out, but she doesn't stop thinking about him for a long, long time.

* * *

14\. (Because a year can make a difference in puberty.)

It is five months into their sixth year, when James picks up her Potions book and hands it back to her, that Lily decides that she has forgiven him. She is many things – most of them varying degrees of positive traits – but she isn't a hypocrite. She can not hold him to the mistakes he made against her when they were children, not when there are far worse people putting up posters spouting Voldemort's agenda all around Hogwarts and running off to murder innocent people. To harbour a grudge against some silly teenage boy for throwing a prejudiced kid up in the air and later saving his life is not Lily's style. James is not a cruel person.

He laughs and jokes and still makes a fool of himself around Lily, but he hasn't talked to her properly, not in a long time, and Lily realises that she needs to forgive James, so that he can forgive himself.

* * *

15\. (I spy with my little eye.)

Remus, who looks tired and in decent need of a shave, sits beside her on the couch. His clothes are still flecked with blood and his soul still smarted from the fact that he'd let himself get like this on a job. "How are you?" She asks.

"Tired and in decent need of a shave." He eyes Lily, but sideways, with his chin angled the other way. His face is softened by uncertainty and caution.

"I can see that," she says rather dryly. She brings her knees up to her chest, and she leans her cheek against one of her knees. "We both know I wasn't referring to that."

He doesn't smile. "I'm fine. It could have been a lot worse. It _felt_ a lot worse."

"We weren't made for this war."

"I don't think anyone is." He sighs, a soft sound, and looks at her fully. She distinctly remembers a conversation where Sirius offhandedly told them what not to do when punching a guy in the face, and Remus replied 'I'll make sure to keep that in mind the next time I get in a fight'. Remus, ever the diplomat, and even more the pragmatic one, somehow always ends up covered in cuts and bruises. He puts his face in his hands, as if deciding for or against something. "Lily, there's something I have to tell you."

"What? That you've spent the last however many years trying to hide the fact that you're a werewolf and somehow expected me not to figure it out?" Because strangely enough, Lily knows a great deal about Remus, and he just has a tendency to forget that. It's possible Remus has always been aware of this, but has still clung to the hope that every part of him is an impenetrable secret, particularly when it concerns his little furry problem.

"Oh. Well, yes. How did you know?"

"You're not the only Einstein around here. It really wasn't that hard to figure out, what with your monthly disappearances and Severus in my ear all the time."

"And you just… kept it to yourself?"

Lily shrugs, smiling. "What else was I going to do? It's your business. I'd like to think I know you well enough to know that you'd prefer it if everyone was in blissful ignorance over it. Besides, if you ever feel like you can't really talk to anyone about your missions, I'm always down to give you a listen."

He stares at her like it's the first time he's ever seen her. "You – Thank you."

"Don't thank me for being a decent person." She cants her head as if to say 'come on, now'. "We're friends. Friends keep each other's secrets."

He keeps looking at her as if she's grown another friend, and Lily decides he needs to get used to the fact that people care about him. "Have you read this?" She asks, holding up _Frankenstein_. "It's really good. Give it a try some time."

He laughs, and he looks younger for it. "You're really something, you know that?"

She smiles, a little slyly, a little secretively. She feels the truth of it. "So I've been told."

* * *

16\. (She just smiles with her teeth, and licks her lips when we get too close to the cage.)

Lately, Lily has been feeling empty. She feels like a breath of wind could knock her over, shatter her like she is made of glass, and she feels that James should leave her for someone more solid. Someone who can hold their ground. Someone who won't drag him through this war, because this is _her_ life at stake, not his. She doesn't think this all of the time, though, but enough to hurt.

She wants to fill herself with him; she wants to believe that a hollow body can become a home with someone else cradled inside of it.

The light is as pale as she is through the window, the muted sun casting a light on both their bodies. She watches the contrast of their skin as he slides his hand along her arm lazily, tracing patterns she can't put a name or visual on. If she had to take a guess, she'd say it's a shitty rendition of a snitch, or a monkey wearing glasses.

"James?" She says, almost wincing at the high pitch of her voice.

"Mm?" He impulsively kisses her head.

"What would you do if you knew tomorrow was your last day on Earth?"

"Oh, that's easy." He replies without skipping a beat. "I'd go bowling."

For once, she isn't sure she's heard correctly. "Why?"

"Because I've never done it before."

She considers this. "Have you always wanted to?"

"No. But Peter told us about it once, because his muggle cousins came over and dragged him out during the Christmas break, and the way he described it made it sound kind of fascinating."

Lily makes a noise that indicates she doesn't find this line of thought as fascinating as he does. "You're just thinking about all those balls. Big, heavy balls."

"You got me there. What would you do?"

"Well, I _was_ going to say spend it with you and our friends, but maybe I'll go play the superior sport just to spite you."

"Quidditch?"

"Field hockey."

James wrinkles his nose, but she can't see it. "I still don't get how that works."

"Then it's no wonder you find the prospect of bowling so interesting. Just because there's no flying involved..."

But the fact that he'd answered the way he had is doing odd things to Lily's brain. Maybe it's just the straw that breaks the camel's back, or maybe her period is coming soon, but she can feel her eyes welling with tears of sadness instead of laughter when she thinks about it. Her throat constricts, and she blinks and looks up to the light in a futile attempt to stop herself from crying.

James catches on after several seconds of silence. "Lily?" She doesn't say anything, so he sits up a little and pushes her hair away from her face. "What's wrong?"

Lily shakes her head, turning it so that she can bury it in his chest. He runs his hands through her hair and tries to rub soothing circles into her scalp. If anyone were to love her, full and whole, it would be James, because he spent years loving her without knowing it, and another few loving her and telling anyone who would listen. It's sweet and scary all at once. What she's saying is that it's sweet that someone cares just that much, and scary when you know there's an image built up of you in someone's head that could crumble at any second.

She's usually secure enough not to pay it any mind, but war has a way of creeping into people's bodies and corrupting their soul.

"I'm sorry," she coughs out after several minutes, tears streaming down her face. "I'm so sorry."

Lily doesn't know how to tell him that he should find someone whole, that empty people rot faster, that this war might kill her.

* * *

17\. (You are not the first, and you will not be the last.)

Lily looks up at Amelia, clearly affronted. The walls of the alleyway seem to draw in closer to them and she holds her chin up higher in a fragile sort of way. Something like shame colours her cheeks, her collarbones. "I'm not trying to be special," she says, and deep down she knows that that is a lie.

Well, not entirely. She's ashamed of her participation in this war; ashamed that it isn't enough. Above all Lily wants this world to change, so that she can raise a child who won't have to fear that he will have to watch his mother – and eventually his friends – drop like flies; where people can leave their homes without fear that it will be the last time they do so.

But she wants her contribution to mean something. She doesn't want her sacrifices to go unnoticed, though she battles this idea every single day. No one is going to open a history book and search for Lily's name through a long list of others. They will just know that there had been a struggle, and that there were people there to meet it. She will give, and the world will give back.

Her sacrifices only matter to herself.

"I'm not." Lily says, more boldly this time. "And I hope for everyone's sake that I'm not the last one to stand up for what's right, either."

* * *

18\. (Some things are meant to be, she says. I figure she just means her inheritance.)

"What are we even supposed to get? A kennel?"

Lily rolls her eyes, picking up a bottle of expensive looking hand-wash and putting it back down. "Don't be a prat," she says without any heat.

"Me, a prat? If that's your idea of a compliment, no wonder you ended up with James and not me."

"The fact that you can't stop being a prat for one second proves that you _should_ be taking it as a compliment. No one does something so much if they're not sorry about it."

Roughly ten minutes earlier, they had just been about to set off to Petunia's wedding when Lily realised she hadn't gotten her sister and her groom-to-be a wedding present. The arrival of her wedding invitation weeks before and the news that she would not be a bridesmaid had swept any thought of giftshopping from her mind.

Needless to say, Lily is still hurt over it. At least she's done shedding tears over a long-lost friendship.

Lily also knows that regardless of whether or not she turns up with a gift, whatever it is, Petunia will find something within it to criticise. It is more for the sake of her dignity and the love she still has for Petunia that she had dragged Sirius into the nearest Tesco to find something ordinarily boring.

Sirius picks up a bottle of hair removal cream and tosses it into the cart that Lily is currently pushing. Lily shoots a look of skepticism his way. "You are _not_ getting them that. Unless that's for yourself. Carry on if so."

"I know you're just jealous of my luscious locks. Flea spray?" He suggests. The savage smile and carefree attitude makes it seem like he's performing larceny. The fact that they're currently in the washing aisle in formalwear doesn't seem to help, either.

"You've already done a dog joke. We get it, my sister's a bitch. You don't need to tell me that twice."

"How about a bedazzled collar? Merlin. You're right. I can't think of any more jokes."

"Don't you turn into a dog every month?" She asks with the air of someone who already knows the answer. She contemplates the brightly coloured dish-washing liquid sitting on the shelf.

"Can you hurry up and pick something already? The sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave."

With a sigh, Lily takes a can of fly spray and puts it into the trolley. They make their way to the checkout line. She puts the can and the hair-removal cream that they hadn't bothered to put back onto the counter, and just before the person on the till can finish tallying up the price, Lily grabs a bar of chocolate and adds it to the line. Lily hands over the muggle cash and it is over before Sirius can make some stupid remark about the whole thing.

As they make their way out into the world beneath a grey sky, Lily realises she is still pushing a trolley with only three things sitting in the corner of it. She wonders if they should have gotten some more things, but she can't imagine what else they would get.

"Hey, Sirius?" He looks over at her, and she points to the cart. "Get in there."

He cracks a smile, like she's a child who's just told a funny joke, but she just keeps pointing. He raises a brow. "Really, Evans?"

"Don't make this ugly, Black."

"James isn't here. How could we ever make this ugly?"

Sirius hops into the cart with the grace of a lion. He pulls his knees up so that he can fit properly, and ignores the way the bars of the underbelly poke into his bum. Lily pulls the trolley back, lining it up with something only she can imagine, and when she shoves the trolley forward he belts out a string of joyant swear words.

Lily lets out a laugh, though it might be more of a giggle. Either way, she kneels over with a fit of sniggers when he knocks into the trolley stand and crashes catastrophically over to the side. "Are you alright?" She manages to get out between laughter.

He gives her a thumbs up, awkwardly half-lying on his side inside the cart. Fly spray and hair-removal cream roll along the empty car park. She walks over to him, looking profoundly happy, and with one arm she lifts the hem of her pretty pink dress, and the other she offers out to him.

"You are amazing," she says, her face alight with content. "Let's get out of here."

* * *

19\. (Love me when no one is looking.)

Lily Evans turns nineteen surrounded by all her friends, except for that bitch Marlene, who is off chasing Death Eaters and doing her civic duty. Lily loves her anyway. She tries to count the years on her face when she looks in the mirror, but she can not find them.

They celebrate in Potter Manor, partly because they don't trust any restaurants to not give them away right now, and partly because Euphemia will murder James if she doesn't get to see Lily on her birthday. The house is rich with perfumes and baking, and no one looks as if they've seen a sad day in their lives.

She is in the hallway when a hand shoots out to grab hold of her dress and pull her inside darkness.

She yelps as the door closes softly, blocking off everything but a small strip of light. "Calm down." says James, and she can hear the grin in his voice. "It's just me."

"You almost gave me a heart attack!" She thumps him lightly, but it's dark and she thinks her hand misses his chest and ends up somewhere on his arm instead. "Where are we?"

"Bathroom."

"Why?"

"Why do you think?" He says, an arm snaking around her waist and pulling her flush against him.

"You are _ridiculous_." She pats her hand around, looking for his face as her eyes adjust to the darkness. "Still, it beats a broom cupboard. Can we have a light on in here?"

"You don't just turn a light on when you're in the middle of a secret mission, Evans." He scoffs.

"You do when you can't see what you're doing, Potter."

There's a pause where she thinks he might kiss her, or stare at her for impossibly long seconds, and her breath catches in her throat. Instead, James turns on a light.

"Oh," she breathes, "hello."

"Hello."

"Fancy seeing you here."

He kisses her then, and she has no breath to make another sound. His kiss is soft and demanding, and she thinks that choking on him would be a very beautiful way to go. He moves his head, takes her bottom lip between his own, and she releases a breath. The kiss is slightly sloppy with desperation and the possibility of being caught, because they both seem to realise that they can only evade reality for so long.

Nothing can be perfect, she knows this, but if anything can be second best to perfection, it is this.

His hand curls into a fist at her hip, knuckles brushing softly against her dress. She pushes into him so that his back thumps lightly against the door. Her ears are full of the beat of her own blood and the voice of Sirius –

Wait.

"Are you done in there?" Sirius is saying, and Lily pulls away with an annoyed groan. James sighs through his nostrils, leaning his head back.

"No." James calls.

"Sounds like you are." Sirius replies, and there is the distinct sound of Sirius knocking against the door. "Hurry up. I want cake."

"Well they're not serving it in here!" Lily shrills. "Go away!"

"They're not serving it until you get your arse out here." Sirius corrects. "Don't make me tell Mrs. Potter on you."

"Do it!" James says. "She'll only tell you to leave us alone. She actively encourages us to close every door behind us."

Lily presses her mouth to his shoulder to stifle her giggle.

"I'll tell Mary."

"She'll only say the same thing!"

"Dorcas, then!"

"You'll tell me what?" Comes the faint cry of Dorcas, who's very obviously in another room entirely.

Lily eyes James warily and untangles herself from his arms. She opens the door, throwing Sirius a dirty look. "As the birthday girl, I decree that you're getting no cake."

"On what account?" He cries.

"On the account that you are nosy, selfish git." She says cooly. James shrugs at Sirius over her shoulder. "You're welcome to have the cheese and crackers."

"I don't want cheese and crackers." He replies indignantly. "James, I don't like your fiancée."

"Oh, hush. You love me. Come on." They follow her into the main room, where she gives an apologetic wave to Dorcas. She then takes a butchered piece of cheese and puts it on a cracker, and turns to place the combination onto Sirius's tongue.

"You're the worst." He says around it. "This cheese is really good."

The lights dim, and Lily's cheeks warm. Euphemia is standing at the doorway with a large sponge cake, smiling brightly. Lily almost believes that she has been waiting there ever since Lily initially disappeared.

The room bursts into a chorus of 'Happy Birthday', James crowing it the loudest, and Lily is stuck with the awkward dilemma of standing there with her hands on her blushing cheeks. The warm glow of the candles gets ever closer, eventually stopping in front of her and casts her in a firey light.

"Make a wish," she hears James say quietly to her.

She looks into the flames, looks at the people she loves the most in the world, and knows that this is what it means to be loved in return. That she carries all these people in the mantle of her heart. That she can't wish for anything more than for them to all be happy and safe.

That when she closes her eyes to make her wish, she doesn't feel closer to dying.

* * *

20\. (I want to rob lumber mills and hospitals with you and just bewilder the hell out of people the way love should.)

Lily really realises her feelings for James through Marlene. She wants to thank God and Merlin for Marlene, for all that she does, for being her friend, for just being Marlene.

But right now she is in Hogsmeade with James, Marlene is nowhere in sight, and she is in a quaint little shop full of beautiful jewellery from all around the world. "This isn't really your thing, is it?" She asks, a smile on her mouth.

"What do you mean? Don't you think I'd look dashing in this, um, this thing." He holds up a nose ring enchanted to look like a moving snake. "I can pull anything off."

Lily doesn't disagree, and he's encouraged by how appreciatively she looks at him. "I meant buying for other people."

"I buy things for people all the time." He says defensively.

"In jewellery stores?"

"I can always start now." He shows her a pair of silver studs. "Do you think Sirius would like these?"

She points to a series of unmentionable rings. "No more than he'd like those, I suspect."

"Oh, you dirty girl."

Lily grins cheekily, but quickly pretends to be enamoured by a series of swinging monkey bracelets to hide her blush.

He moves through the expanse with ease, picking up this or that to take a closer look. It's difficult to feel hurried when he seems somewhat interested in all the little shiny things. "What are you looking for, anyway? A chastity belt? A promise ring? An _engagement_ ring?" She can hear the frown in his voice.

"It's really silly." She says, erring on the side of nervous. "Every year I get Marlene another charm for her birthday."

"Oh, I always wondered what that thing on her wrist was. I thought it was half a handcuff. An idea for next year?"

She wanders over to the side where they keep the charms, all lying prettily on a velvet box and protected by a glass case. "Why, so I can lock her to me?"

"Something like that." He adjusts his glasses, peering over her shoulder to look at the charms on display. "Hey, these are pretty neat."

"Marlene's already got that one." She points to a little glowing ball of violet. "And half of them are ones I got in London, but I Charmed them myself."

"You're really good at Charms." He says admiringly.

"Aren't you in Transfiguration club?"

"Stalking me now, are we?"

"It's common knowledge that you tried to transfigure Darrell Creevy into a teacup to settle a debate over whether or not the Troll Exclusion was set in the 1400s or the 1500s. It was neither, by the way."

"Oh. Yeah. So when is Marlene's birthday?"

"Not for a while. But I really want to get this early in case I can't find anything better."

"Is that how you pick all your gifts, Evans?"

She waves him off absently. "I can't choose between her star sign or another glowy one. Help?"

"Why not get her the heart?"

"Because I think someone else might be more interested in giving that to her." She says a little too pointedly. She brushes her hair behind her ear to keep it out of the way. "Though maybe the one with _double_ hearts is more romantic."

"I don't like where this is going."

She laughs. "It's not from me. I think Dorcas wants to give her something like that."

His lips form an 'o' shape. He takes a second to compose himself, then points at a little doe charm. "Get her that one. It's like your patronus, yeah?"

"How do you know about my patronus?" She asks, and it is not an accusation.

James shrugs. "You cast one that time after the train attack. You know, when they had to bring the Dementors in to do a sweep?" He doesn't mention the fact that neither him nor his friends know how to perform one. Yet.

She blinks, her heart warming at the fact that he remembers. There are roses in her mouth and rabbits kicking in her stomach, her happiness vibrating all the way down to her feet.

"Don't smile at me like that."

"Like what?"

"You're doing that slightly deranged grin you do when you're pleased with someone. It kind of makes you look like you're about to murder me."

She rolls her eyes lightly. "So I should go for the doe one, then?"

"Yeah, I reckon." He replies. All casual.

She walks up to the counter to ask the woman to get another charm exactly like it, walking in time to the beat of her heart – which is to say, quickly. She's never realised just how _easy_ it can be with James, like she has spoken to him like this for years rather than just recently.

He is grinning when they leave the shop and into the green of Hogsmeade. There are cherry red leaves of what could be poison ivy lining the path of the main road, and she looks at them instead of him. "Thank you." She says.

"For what?"

"For helping me pick."

She looks up, and he is smiling.

"Any time." He holds his arm out, like a gentleman waiting to escort his lady. "Wanna go to Zonko's?"

She takes his arm. "Absolutely."


	3. why not smile?

!GORE WARNING FOR PART 21! feel free to skip it if you want

* * *

21\. (On days like this I would just disappear if it weren't for you and your love like nails in my feet.)

If Lily had known what was awaiting her on the other side of that Patronus, she might have thought twice about coming to the Order's aid.

Gideon Prewett had sent it, a silvery and whispery wolf, its urgency evident by the message – 'send backup immediately. Death toll unknown, but high'. She is thankful to have her wand tucked behind her ear and nothing better to do before the madness really kicks in.

She leaves the light of the safe house and is plunged into darkness. Everything smells like blood, and guts, and more blood. The stench is strong enough to make her gag every time she breathes, though she imagines this is what she would become if she were to stop – breathing, that is. Her foot is caught on something squishy and she doesn't want to cast a light and look down, but she does despite her better instincts.

Lily is paralysed by panic.

"Lily! Over here!" It takes her a moment to tear her gaze away from the half-eaten remains that make up the floor, and she sees a flash of light and fire instead. The flame lights up the scene: a pack of Inferi, wading towards them through a children's playground, melting as the flames slash through their rotten skin. Emmeline Vance, her face distraught with blood and her hair falling out of her ponytail and into her face, which is odd, because Emmeline is the type of person to always, always, always put her appearance first. "Shield me for a second!"

Lily does as she's told, doing her best to concentrate on the matter at hand – saving people, not trying to keep the bile down. She does her best to ignore the severed limbs littering the floor, blood still flowing as if it happened mere minutes ago. She isn't surprised to see her hand shaking when she lifts it up to cast a shield charm.

"Wh–what happened?" Her stomach rolls.

"Don't know. Ministry received some frantic call, and when we got here it was…" Emmeline shudders. She makes to slash at the last Inferi. "Oh, you bastard. Is your shield charm holding well? Reducto!" The Inferi bursts into a million gore-filled pieces, bouncing off of Lily's shield and splattering against the playground. Lily's chest heaves with a gag. That's going to be a real bitch to clean up.

Emmeline tries to wipe some of the blood off her face, but she only manages to smear it around some more. Lily stares transfixed at the remnants of abandoned life around them. She blinks, then blinks again, rapidly, as she starts to look without seeing. She should have realised that it is inevitable that she would have to fight – and kill, eventually – for the Order. That she could not ignore the brutalities of war forever.

"Lily." Emmeline's voice sounds far away. "Come on. We have to look for survivors."

Lily balls her cloak to her nose to keep the smell away and nods. "Are there any more of them?"

"No clue." Emmeline says as she starts stalking towards the rows of trees lining the playground, her wand held high with the barest of light. "But I'm going to safe a bet and say yes. Hopefully Gid is taking care of them."

"And the medis?" Lily asks, following close behind Emmeline.

"They're going to be laid thin even if it is safe enough for them to all come down. Communication's scattered. We can't risk the Inferi catching sight of a Patronus when we don't know who's doing what. Sparks are even worse."

Lily glances up at the sky, dark yet with not even a hint of stars, with a patch in the corner taken up by a shower of red sparks that have been there for who knows how long. SOS. Lily finds it hard to muster up much resolve when things are looking bleaker than bleak. "Why here?" She half-whispers. "Why now?"

"Try 'because they can'?" Emmeline laughs, though it is bitter and lacks humour.

Before Lily can reply to this, movement up ahead catches their attention. Something light and strange shimmers between the trees, and Lily holds her wand up – whether to defend or attack, she doesn't know – though Emmeline lowers hers as Gideon Prewett strides out towards them. His clothes are tattered and covered in gore, and the light of Emmeline's wand combined with his own sharpens his cheekbones and the dark look in his eyes.

"It's alright on that side." He says as he steps towards them. "Fabian and I took care of them. He's trying to arrange a Portkey for some residents he's found. We're gonna try suss the death toll in the morning." He doesn't need to say 'if we make it', but it is there all the same.

"What's the plan?" Emmeline asks.

Gideon's lips thin into a grim line. "Try to link up with Bones's team."

"Is that it?" Emmeline frowns.

"You got a better one?" He raises a brow.

"Is there any sign of the Death Eaters who brought them here?" Lily asks, lowering her cloak slightly.

He shakes his head. "They were long gone by the time we got here. The town was in ruins when we finally got wind of what was going on. The Oblivators are going to have one hell of a job."

Lily gives a hard nod. "So how many teams are there?"

"Three." Emmeline says. "Gideon's, Bones's, and mine."

Lily's heart drops through her stomach. Whatever hope Lily has left in her is slowly fading out into the harsh night around them, fragmenting into pieces that are snatched up by the dark. She can't remember a time in her life where she has ever been so scared, and it is not just this moment – rather, this entire period of war has suddenly become so much darker. Everything is coated by a layer built up of blood, and rot, and rust, that sits on the top of her bones and slows her movements down; her thinking, too. This is worse than the monsters in her closet, because perhaps she is now afraid of the monsters hiding in her own heart.

She wishes this sorrow and guilt could collide to make a fiery determination within her, but instead she just feels tired. Maybe even numb. "Are we all that's left of your team?"

"Something like that." Emmeline's shoulders slump – with weariness, disgrace, or heartache, Lily cannot tell. "We lost Garrett the second we got here. Pretty sure you were standing on a part of Michelle."

Lily tries to school her face to resemble something that doesn't look like a panic attack, but her stomach is alive with knots and her heartbeat sounds so loud in her fear. "We–" Her breath shudders out of her, harsh. She swallows. "We'll link up with Bones and decide what to do from there. Can we get a movement sweep out here?"

Gideon raises his wand and says, "Homenum Revelio," at the same time that Emmeline says, "Motus Revelio".

Gideon shakes his head. "Nothing except earthworms. Might be worth Apparating to the edge and walking from there. You know how to do a Portkey spell?" He directs this last part to Lily, who nods. "Good. We'll need to Portkey whoever we find out of here and to St. Mungo's. Best if we do groups of them, but our main priority is getting people to safety."

He draws his shoulders back, squaring up for what's to come. With an almost comical salute, he Disapparates.

The moment before she twists into nothing feels much like a dentist visit – strapped in the chair, waiting for them to pull the tooth and get it over with.

The air she appears in is cool on her face, and they are standing on a grassy hill, overlooking the town. It is almost peaceful in the midst of all that's going on, and she's tempted to just close her eyes and fall to her knees, maybe pray that this whole night is nothing more than a bad dream. That is, until she actually takes in what she's seeing.

The night frames itself as a horror: instead of street and house lights, there are fires scattered across the town to break up the blanket of darkness. Smoke curls up into the air, but it is nothing compared to the Dark Mark that sits in the sky, mocking them. It is eerily silent. She presses her lips together and tastes blood.

Emmeline Apparates beside her before she can do so much as grit her teeth. Gideon is standing near the edge of the clearing, looking out with concentration.

"There's sign of wand light towards the west." He says, rubbing his chin. "Reckon it's our best chance at finding them quickly. Em, stay here and keep watch. If it's them, I'll come and grab you. If not, we'll come and grab you anyway."

"If you're not dead first." Emmeline quips weakly.

They turn on their heels and Apparate again. This time, they don't plunge themselves fully into darkness; there is Edgar, surprise and wariness highlighted by his wandlight. There is Sirius, nearly slipping in a cascade of blood. And there is James, his wand trained on them both, though he lowers it when he realises who it is.

"Lily! Holy shit, Lily, are you okay?" He rushes forward, holding her by her arms.

"I–I don't know." She wants to let the words spill out of her mouth – that she is not good at this, that she has hung her head on the battlefield too many times now, that out here she is nothing more than instinct, and she struggles far too much in accepting her own raw humanity. That she is only ever full of doubt now because she has seen people be wrong in war, and here it costs much more than a bad grade.

That this is too much for her – the blood, the guts – that she doesn't know how people can hold themselves together when she is little more than body parts stitched together by splinters. That she wants to go home, to forget this night, to curl up next to Petunia and be read The Tale of Peter Rabbit again by her father.

That the deep pressure of war is something that needs to be torn out of her before she ends up clawing and ripping out her own heart just to feel a moment of peace.

But she smiles shakily, thorns studded in her chest. "What's going on here?"

Gideon and Edgar are talking to each other, though she cannot hear the words. She only has eyes for James.

"Found a pack Inferi trying to get in through this house. They were looking for some kids who'd managed to hole themselves up in the attic. They're safe, now." He adds at the look of horror on her face. "We've just been trying to clear survivors out."

"Weird, though." Sirius pipes up from the front steps to a quaint porch. "I've never heard of Inferi travelling together before, and I've heard a lot of shit from my dear old mum." He says this last part with faux sweetness, so acidic it's made to rot.

"This whole thing is…" She shakes her head, breathily trying to find the words. "Out of control."

"I'm really glad you're alive." James says. "I'd kiss you, but…" He lifts one shoulder in a shrug.

"I'm glad you're alive too." She laughs in a frail way despite the tears that are welling in her eyes. All she wants to do is shudder and weep for a childhood that is no more; for all the friends she has lost along the way. "Both of you. I'm just –"

"I know." James says soothingly, and he goes to run a hand through her hair before stopping himself mid-way.

"You may as well." She says. "I'm already a complete mess."

His chuckle is weak. Her hair slides sluggishly over her shoulder as he pushes it back. She wants to kiss him, because the thing about kissing is that it's a whole lot like laughing. If you find something funny, it doesn't matter how long it's been or what the circumstances are. Even if there is nothing funny or romantic about this situation at all.

But James says, "Come back to my parents' place when this is all over. You shouldn't be alone. We can build a fort if we don't pass out first."

She looks down. "James?" She lowers her voice, just enough for him and Sirius, if he strains, to hear. It's a good thing Sirius is too busy trying to look through the dark windows to bother. "Do you ever think of just not going back? Just – going to holiday on the coast, forgetting this whole thing and living our lives?"

"Hiding?" James asks dubiously.

"I guess."

"No."

"Would you hate me if I never stepped foot outside a safe house again?"

"I could never hate you."

There is a long pause. She thinks of a life she could be living right now – where he kisses her on a beach at dawn, the sky a pale blue that bleeds into pink and is mirrored by the ocean, and no dark can hide in that lightness, in the happiness that would live inside of her. People would get hurt. Havoc would erupt across Britain, and people would die. All because Lily is sick of being scared all the time. Because she is not strong enough to keep standing.

Part of her would like to think it's for his benefit too – of course it would be – because she has seen his horror-struck face when he thinks no one is watching. That this is hard on him, too. He may have to kill childhood friends, the ones whose families are higher up than his and wear their family crest on their chests like it proves their worth, the ones who have fallen for misconceptions and lies. That he may cry onto her shoulder again and again, for what he has done, for what others have done. That she'll find herself wishing that she can be strong enough to bear this for both of them. That things might be okay.

Lily closes her eyes as if it is painful. "Let's find survivors."

22\. (…though nothing is damaged, everything is changed.)

"Mary—" Lily reaches out in time to stop her friend from falling through the trick step. Lily blinks, startled even though she is not the one a centimetre away from the trouble of a stuck leg, and it feels as though a weight is pressing down on her heart. "This is the second time today."

"Right." Mary shakes her head, causing her gold hoops to shake with her. "Sorry."

Mary is usually the more focused of the two; always grounding Lily when she gets away with the fairies, always reminding them all what's due and when, only losing focus when a boy or something sparkly comes by. Lately everything is drawing her attention away, from a scrape on the banister to a portrait that's looking at her a little weirdly.

Lily can't really blame Mary, not after what Mulciber did to her, and while she understands, she can't help but feel like Mary should be more relaxed around her friends. She so desperately wants to believe that several years of close friendship can be strong enough to overcome fear. She wants to be an anchor on her sinking ship, but she doesn't know if Mary will let her be.

"What were you saying, Lils?"

A small, strained smile pushes its way onto her face. "Nothing, Mare."

23\. (I'll be good, I'll be good, and I'll love the world like I should.)

James's curiosity is piqued when Lily shows up to Sirius's so-called 'birthday party' without so much as a card, let alone a proper present. It is only the five of them crammed into Sirius's apartment, fresh out of Hogwarts, though they're under strict orders from the man himself to be less awful than usual to him.

Lily kisses Sirius's cheek and moves to the side so that James can put Sirius in a headlock and ruffle his hair. "How's it feel to be an old man?" He asks joyously as Sirius tries to wiggle out of his grip.

"Good until you showed up."

James pulls a face and releases him. "Are you going to tell me to get off your lawn? Chase me into the streets with a walking stick?"

"Something like that." Sirius says with ease and raised brows. "I can think of plenty of places to stick it up."

"Peter's nose, perhaps?"

A noise of indignation comes out of Peter's throat. "What happened to maturity?"

"We've never had any of that."

Lily slinks over to Remus as Sirius, James, and Peter discuss the logistics. One of Remus's arm is wrapped in a sling, and he smiles at Lily when she stops in front of him. "Want to help me with something?" She asks, a cheeky smile dancing on her lips.

His brows furrow, and his smile is questioning. "With what?"

"Never you mind. Where does Sirius keep his motorbike?"

"Out front." He leaves no place for doubt, and he says it not of paranoia, but of observation. "Why?" He narrows his pale eyes.

"Cover for me, okay? Tell them I'm having the most awful cramps the world has ever seen if you have to. I'll be back in five minutes."

She leaves him to stand there with no further explanation, slipping out through the front door when she's sure they're too busy trying to play catch with a sloppily wrapped present. It is foolish to think they won't notice her absence quickly, but Lily prefers to be foolish.

She makes her way down the stairs of the muggle building, her feet thudding against each step, and out into the muggy air of the street. The sky is dark with clouds, the air cold enough to bite, the one-way street empty of people, and she spots the red, gleaming motorbike in all its glory in no time at all.

It is parked just a little to the left of the building, and she thinks that the fact he will have to find a new — and hidden — parking spot after she's done will be worth it. Her heart stops, hammers, then starts in on an excited pace that can only be matched to her brilliant smile.

She crouches beside the bike and discretely pulls out her wand and a piece of parchment from her pant pocket. Charming all her pockets to be as deep as a suitcase had been a truly great investment, even before she'd begun to plan this. She can keep all sorts of goodies down there, half of which she's already forgotten she'd packed. She begins to read the words from the parchment like a soothing prayer, moving her wand to point at varying parts of the bike.

Lily is good at many things, but charms is something she not only excels in, but she loves it in a way that overwhelms her with gratitude. Sure, there is potions too, but every time she flickers back to the green light of the dungeons she thinks of Snape cornering her when her partner was off sick or Slughorn praising her despite her muggleborn status. Charms is something her wand is made for, something that had picked her especially, and had always come as easily as brushing her hair.

Lily moves her arm over and over, checking and rechecking each part to make sure it is as perfect as she has practiced, and her motivation is only fuelled by what she imagines will be the look on Sirius's face when he realises what she's done. It is strange to think she hadn't had much of a premonition of what he would become to her all those years ago — on a carriage, on a train — but maybe it is not as weird as she thinks. So much of what makes magic magic is the fact that you don't see it coming at all.

Sirius is the brother she'd never asked for, but cherishes all the same.

It is a few minutes later, with cold cheeks and a pink nose, that Lily rejoins them, her back to the door as she closes it.

"Hey Lils," Sirius calls from over his shoulder. The boys are currently in the middle of an exploding snap game, which seems to never get old. "Feeling better?" He grins, but the lack of teasing makes her feel like she's gotten away with it. James is looking at her through suspicious eyes, but he doesn't say anything until the game is finished and they start handing out plates for food.

"You're not on your period." He states quietly. "I memorised your cycle. What's going on?"

"I'd say that's weird, but you learned Remus's quickly enough. Pass the salt?"

"Say please and don't avoid the question."

"Maybe you should take your own advice. I'll start: please pass the salt." She holds her hand out expectantly, giving James a look that feels so reminiscent of Petunia that she cuts it out.

He passes her the salt. She says, "you'll see with everyone else. It's a surprise."

"I can practice my surprised face in the mirror if you'd like."

"Go on, then, but you still have to wait."

"You're no fun." He sticks his lower lip out in a dramatic pout.

"Don't be so sure about that." Lily says lightly, before moving over to sit with Peter and the conversation is closed.

That is, until Sirius announces it's present time and he'll be rating each present out of five. "This one is from either Remus or Lily. You two can't wrap for shit," he says, pointing between James and Peter.

"Lily's the shit wrapper, actually." James says. "Mum always said Santa would force-feed me coal if I didn't fold the edges and put a bow on a gift."

"Right, so this one's yours. What is it?"

"Open it and find out." James rolls his eyes, but smiles all the same. He wraps an arm around Lily's shoulder and pulls her closer, squeezing her gently with excitement.

Sirius tears the paper off with no regard for James's meticulous wrapping, grinning wickedly at the stack of lewd muggle magazines peeking out from underneath a bottle of Ogden's.

"Nice." Sirius says with an air of condensation, grin still intact, as if James is puppy who has managed not to chew on a shoe. "You're not very original, are you?"

"Had to give you something lackluster to make up for Christmas. You got how many technowhatevers again?"

"Three, and mind your business. A solid three for you James." He tuts. "Peter, what have you got for me?"

Peter's gift turns out to be a very odd cookbook — odder than odd, even — which earns himself a four, and Remus's gift consists of a studded dog collar and some Russian literature; a four point five.

Then all eyes swing on Lily and the burning gap where her present should be. Sirius narrows his eyes. "Listen, Evans, if you're planning on giving me a gift in the way of physical favours, I'll have you know—"

"Ew, Sirius." Lily pulls a face, and Sirius looks affronted at the fact that she wouldn't find him attractive to abandon all pretence otherwise. "Your gift is outside."

James makes a shrill noise of confusion, but by now they are used to strange and dramatic James noises, so they all ignore it. They clamber to their feet, and Sirius leads the pack out the door and down the stairs with his head held high, his shoulders squared, and his hands swinging.

They make it outside and he says, lacking no enthusiasm, "right. Where is it?"

"I reckon you should sit on your bike, Sirius." She replies with a smirk.

Peter gives her a confused look from the side. James makes a sad, pathetic noise. Sirius doesn't bat an eye, and straddles his bike.

"Well?"

"Turn it on." Her amused smile grows wider, and so do the curious looks.

A beam of blinding light then covers the empty parking spot in front of the bike, the revving of the engine loud enough to piss off all the neighbours. He turns the handle, and it takes off like a shot, a surprised bark of laughter escaping him, too, as he soars into air.

"Lily fucking Evans." Peter marvels appreciatively beside her.

"Be careful you don't crash into someone's roof, you moron!" Lily calls after Sirius, half-wishing she'd had the foresight to at least put a bubble of silence around them. Ah, well. Sirius has always enjoyed making a scene.

He swoops back down, grinning roguishly at them. He looks straight at Lily, his lips moving into the softest expression she's ever seen on him. Making Sirius Black smile is like making nice with Voldemort. These aren't forces you want to play with.

"Wanna take a ride, Evans?"

"On your bike, I hope." James pitches in.

"I would be honoured."

"Careful, Prongs, I might just steal your woman."

"She'd kick you in the balls every chance she gets."

Lily hops on behind Sirius, wrapping her arms around his waist, her eyes wide with nerves and her smile a little helpless. "What's the rating on this present?" She murmurs.

Sirius revs the engine again. "A fucking seven."

24\. (Maybe they should kill your pony. They? I don't even know who they are. I wouldn't kill your pony. I'd like to believe it, anyway. I'd like to believe I wouldn't drag you out in to the woods and leave you there, either. So far, it hasn't come up.)

It starts when James remarks one morning, "you're very short, Evans."

"You're just freakishly tall, Potter." She replies cooly, spearing a piece of bacon with her fork and holding it to her mouth. "Didn't I used to be taller than you?"

Mary, who has been applying bright red lipstick to her lips beside them, her breakfast long discarded, and has thus been spying on them through the reflection of her compact-mirror, says, "you just shrunk in the wash. Potter's been stretched." She rubs her lips together, either dissatisfied or just trying to get the product more evenly spread.

Lily points her fork at Mary as if she has a point. "Should I make a 'what's the view up there like' joke, too?"

"Oh, why not. Be a daredevil about it." Mary closes her mirror with a snap.

"At least I'm worth my weight in gold." Lily looks at James, where contempt collides with a coy little smile on her face. "Your weight is measured in other substances."

"Really big heavy dragons?" James offers. Then, because he can't quite comprehend what would compel a fourteen year old girl to change the colour of her lips, he asks, "Mary, why'd you do that?"

"Do what?"

He points at her lips. "That."

"Why not?" Mary sounds a little annoyed, and a crease forms between her brows.

"Because it looks like you've just eaten the heart of a man." Sirius says, which is probably up there in the most juvenile responses anyone could come up with. "A man with a very bright blood colour."

"And so what if I have?" She waves them off just as Lily sets down her fork and wipes her own mouth with a napkin. James doesn't know why his eyes wander to her hands, to her covered lips. He doesn't know why he suddenly finds them so fascinating, doesn't know how to diagnose this feeling. He tries not to search the shadow of her knuckles for things that are not there, though he's never really known how to put a stop to thoughts he cannot pin down. He also tries not to sniff too hard, because if he's not mistaken, Lily has started wearing perfume on the vulnerable curve of her neck. That, or she just always smells like jasmine.

"Some of us have been invited to Slughorn's end of the term party." Lily explains on Mary's behalf, though the way she says it is closer on the spectrum to cold than it is anything else. Not quite, but almost. "And some of us want to look good."

"Is that supposed to be code or something?" James asks. "And what does that have to do with painting your face?"

Lily rolls her eyes as if his stupidity is painful, and he notices just how green her eyes are. Very green. Green, like how he wanted to make his bedroom walls the most violent shade of it he could find when he was younger. Green, like the colour of envy. Green, like a fucking Monet painting, which she incidentally looks like she's just stepped out of. He swallows.

Lily stands up and swings her bag over her shoulder, clearly oblivious to his woes. Her skirt moves in a not-entirely-decent manner. "Just because you don't like to put an effort into your appearance, doesn't mean we all do the same." She mocks.

James hears an abrupt bark of laughter from across the table, and Sirius is shaking his head with a grin split across his face.

Lily ignores them both, and instead turns slightly on her feet. "See you tonight, Peter."

James swings a look of accusation at Peter as Lily and Mary saunter away, bracing his hands against the table as he leans in close. "What's that supposed to mean?" He levels.

"Lily invited me to be her date." Peter replies defensively, halfway through chewing his toast. "For Slughorn's party-thing tonight. What?"

"Why do you look like you want to strangle Peter, James?" Sirius asks with heavy amusement, as if the answer isn't tucked away in his brain. He's always down for a little bit of trouble, especially when it's at James's expense.

"I'm not. I'm thinking about where the best place to dump his body is."

Peter lets out a strangled cry. He looks between James and Sirius, alarmed and in search of some kind of reasonable explanation. Like he'd ever find it between the two of them. "What did I do?"

Sirius shrugs. "Beats me."

It hangs over him like a dark cloud for the rest of the day, and he can't figure out why.

It's there when he chews on the end of his quill in Defense and stares at the back of Lily's head, wondering what on Earth is going on in that mind of hers.

It's there when Remus asks him why he's so quiet, and if he could possibly stop trying to expand his toad because it's quite a horrible sight, thank you very much.

It's there when Sirius hops onto the table in the Great Hall and Professor McGonagall has to threaten him with a detention to get him down, even though there is a smile hidden in the straight line of her lips.

It's there when he tries to force the thoughts to make sense, and all he can picture is lily-pad green and Peter's stubby fingers.

And it's very much there when he sees them that night, Lily in a pale blue dress and her hair tied up in some intricate updo, meeting Peter who's put in as much effort as he can for a night in a bunch of stuffy people's presence – oh, and Lily's – and it's there when he gets up to pace for the rest of the evening.

Trouble, James thinks darkly, I'm in so much fucking trouble.

Oh well. He's always liked trouble.

25\. (Saying your plans out loud is a good way to hear God laugh.)

Marlene raps her perfectly manicured fingernails against the table, her other hand supporting her chin as she looks out the window. She is on break from what she refers to as her 'fucking stupid job at the training pitch', yet she doesn't look like she's spent the last four hours getting grilled by coaches and sweating the hard work out.

Dorcas sits beside her and across from Lily, the clueless look she'd always had in school replaced by loss and resignation. She blows a puff of air out to try move a dark strand of hair away from her face.

Mary sits beside Lily, all shorts skirts and tight blouses. She, too, is on break from her job — this one Marlene describes as 'Mary's stupid, pointless job in the Ministry's personal fucking post office'.

It is the first time they have all gotten together since the summer after Hogwarts, when Marlene had first shouldered her way into a reserve Quidditch team and Mary was juggling internships. When the war wasn't so deeply ingrained in their bones, like tattoo carvings and scorching ink. When they hadn't lost the innocence in their eyes.

"Any news on your aunt, Mary?" Dorcas's voice is still dreamy, but now with a permanent hardened edge.

"Last I heard, she got accosted by dolphins in the nicest way possible."

"What I wouldn't give to be at the beach." Dorcas sighs, then adds almost accusatorily, "you know, it's not fair that we can do all this magic yet we can't just go on random holiday trips. I'm so sick of all this rain."

"What, is it messing up your hair?" Lily teases with a smile.

"Yes! I spend so long styling it, only for it to get frizzy the second I step outside."

"There's nothing else for it, then. You're going to have to be locked in."

"Oh, don't!" Dorcas cries at the same time as Mary says, "that wouldn't be so bad."

Marlene picks up a slice of pizza, watching the cheese that still clings to both the slice and the plate as if it is some mysterious artefact.

"I want to see the mountains, too." Dorcas adds like she had never been interrupted. "I want to learn how to cook and paint without feeling rushed. I want to skip the fighting and just get to the peace we're promised. I know we're fighting for things, real things and real people, but we're fighting for ourselves, too, and it just feels like I'm fighting with myself instead. I want to feel like I have the rest of my life ahead of me, you know?"

There is a quiet murmur of agreement.

"Would you hold it against me?" Dorcas asks, dark brows furrowed. She is serious now. "If I left and never came back to see what this war turns into?"

"That depends." Marlene says, taking a bite of her pizza.

"On?" Dorcas prompts.

"If I can come with you."

Lily smiles. "You'd get lost without her help, Cas. We'd have to helicopter you out off a mountaintop."

"You'd have to what?" Dorcas asks politely, as she always does when it concerns muggle things.

"I'm going to Spain." Mary blurts out. It is so unexpected that it gives the girls pause, a moment to blink, think what? before they look at her for an explanation. "Someone from their liaisons office recruited me." She rushes through the words, as if she's desperate for them to understand. "Said there's a good job waiting for me with lots of money. Also the boys aren't too harsh on the eye." She doesn't meet anyone's eyes. "I can't do this anymore. I might live past the war, but I might not actually survive it. It's taking everything, and I can't just keep living in fear every single day, waiting for them to finally finish what they started in that stupid classroom."

Lily puts her arm around Mary's shoulders and lets her lean against her and envelop her in the smell of french pear. She knows that none of this is fair, that this all started because what? Some muggle-born looked at a pureblood weird, all those years ago, and so they told their friends, and their friends told their friends, and it spiraled from there? That they thought 'how dare those muggleborns steal our jobs, teach our children, talk to us like we are one of them?' That they let those beliefs get thick, and brutal, and become principles that they would base their own personal systems around. That it would turn to hatred, and war, and bloodshed. They wanted muggle-borns gone, and they would kill to do it.

Mary sniffs, trying to swallow the burning in her throat, and Lily makes a soft hushing noise. "Don't." Mary says guilty. "I'll ruin my mascara if I cry."

They laugh, a watery sound, and Lily presses Mary closer to her. She wants to go with her, and not just because they haven't been an ocean apart before, but because in every quiet moment she has to herself, she selfishly wants to escape. She is doing this all for a good cause, she knows, and she will not quit, but she wishes she didn't have to do this in the first place. That she could live how she wanted, unburdened by war and the prospect of time. That she could laugh and smile with her friends and not feel the strain of her heart breaking.

"When?" She asks quietly. She can see the sun glint off the tears in Mary's eyes.

"Three weeks from now."

"Will you come back for the wedding?"

"And let them lot be your maids of honour? Fat chance." She huffs.

"I'm holding you to that, MacDonald. I don't trust anyone else to take care of my makeup."

Mary, who loves them but leaves them, sniffs again. Lily supposes that they are all the same, really, a quartet of girls with their hearts in the right places, who have followed each other into war because they love each other, but aren't made for it all the same. Because once a Gryffindor girl –

It should worry her that she doesn't know how that sentence ends anymore. Not exactly, anyway.

"We're going to be okay." Lily says, looking at Marlene and Dorcas with a fierce determination on her face. "All of us. We're going to see the end of this war, and we're all going to get married and have kids and retire and complain about how much our backs ache. And we're going to be happy about it all, too."

"What part of having a sore back screams happy?" Marlene asks.

Dorcas says softly, "because it means we're alive."

26\. (The terrible things that happened to you didn't make you you. You always were.)

Lily is fifteen when she thinks she's a little closer to understanding what it means to love someone wholeheartedly. She's not sure if she'll ever really know, because she is smart enough to respect that love is the purest magic of all, the strongest, too, and also the most elusive. She is spending the last few weeks of summer break with Mary on her farm, which makes a little and a lot of sense, considering who Mary is and more importantly, what she wears.

It is on the cusp of nightfall one evening as they look up at the sky and try to point out random constellations, trying – and laughably failing – to name them in their ancient tongues, that it happens: Mary calls for her dog to finally come in for the night and the forest on the edge of the paddock calls even louder, but Beetroot comes home anyway.

She knows that there are no lines in this world, that nothing is strictly this or that save for a few exceptions, and she knows that this means something because she can feel it in her chest. She isn't the type to spell it backwards, but she knows that it is love. Not some kind of shade, either. Rather, it is at the very heart of the definition, or another key piece to unlocking the big, mysterious, wonderful mystery that it is to love.

And on some days in the future, this knowledge will be comfort. On others, it will not.

27\. (One day I will laugh and no loneliness will fall out.)

She thinks Alastor Moody's grand speeches about vigilance and constant doom are beginning to get to them, because why else would they react the way they do one unfortunate afternoon?

It happens as she walks down a more quiet street of London, the handle of a plastic shopping bag sitting against her wrist and trying to sear into her skin as she returns from her hunt for groceries. She wants to cook tonight, even if she's nothing more than just okay at it, and she's trying to figure out with James how she's going to set it all up when she sees a black hood out of the corner of her eye.

James's reaction is just instinct at this point, so rooted in his brain that he pulls his wand out of his pocket and yells a spell before he can even think it through. There is a thud as the dark figure hits the ground, and she hears James let out a heavy breath. She is oddly silent beside him.

He finds her staring at her, and is about to go off to scrounge up more Death Eaters when she grabs his wrist, shaking her head sadly. With her other hand, the one whose arm has the bag hanging off it, she lowers his wand gently. "No, James." She says softly.

He looks at her with confusion, then looks at the man, and horror dawns on his face. There is no mask to hide behind, only a hoodie pulled up and covering his hair, wearing jeans and sneakers; the whole shebang. Lily lets go of James to walk towards the man and crouch beside him. She Enervates him and then Obliviates him as if this is a regular occurance, a nurse with a patient she knows like the back of her hand.

But James had known.

He had thought.

Lily helps the man up and convinces him everything is completely normal, and walks back to James. She brushes his hair away from his eyes. He sighs against the ache between his ribs. "It's okay, James."

"I thought…"

"I know, James. It's normal."

"Not for me." He whispers. "This doesn't happen to me."

She gives him a flicker of that sad, reassuring smile. "It happens to everyone, hon."

"It doesn't happen to you."

"I was half a second from hexing him myself." She laughs wearily. He takes her hand, his arms feeling like lead. "Come on. Let's go make some cottage pie."

28\. (I brought some marshmallows. Let's burn this world down.)

When Lily had come to Hogwarts, she hadn't meant to make Alice Fortescue her surrogate big sister.

She is in her sixth year when Lily is in her first, and she has a lot of patience considering Lily is an excited eleven year old who has just been introduced to the wonders of this new world. They are almost always running into each other at the library, where Alice is trying to study various difficult things at once and Lily is trying to get her hands on every magical book she can. Her thirst for knowledge is a wolf, and it is starving.

In the end, Alice ends up helping her find the books that will be most helpful – 'learning how to reseed plants in the southern hemisphere is not going to come up any time soon in your life, Lily' – and they sit at opposite ends of the same table, working through different sets of homework.

"Why do you want to be an Auror, Alice?" Lily whispers in the library four months into the school year, her red hair tied back in a ponytail and her young face full of freckles and curiosity. She's finding this Transfiguration essay particularly painful, and would much rather bother Alice than write any more about how wandwork and incantations work together. "It seems like a lot of work. Lots more than being a police officer."

"Because we need more Aurors than ever right now." Alice explains. "And I think it's an important job. Someone needs to protect the peace around here."

"Here, like Hogwarts?"

"I suppose."

"Do we have Aurors protecting us at Hogwarts?" Lily marvels. "How come I've never seen them?"

Alice bookmarks her page, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear and peering up. "No, Dumbledore's protection is plenty. But someone needs to be out there in the real world making sure none of this… dark magic," she wrinkles her nose, "makes its way here."

"Dark magic?" Lily bristles.

"Mmm. There are some really nasty wizards out there, Lily." She pauses, as if she doesn't know how to form her next sentence, or if she should at all. Finally, she pushes her reservations aside and says, "Lily, there are some people out there who really don't like muggleborns."

"I thought being a muggleborn wasn't a problem."

"It's not." Alice says patiently. "But some people think that it is. They think that because they don't come from a 'pure' bloodline, they are lesser than them. It's not based on anything real. If ever, it's the purebloods with the problems."

"How so?"

"Well, there's a lot of inbreeding in pure bloodlines." Alice replies conspiratorially, or at least conspiratorially as she can be in a quiet, library-voice. "They produce more squibs than anyone, which also shouldn't be a problem, because non-magical people are worth just as much as anyone, but they still see them as some kind of disappointment." Alice leans back, shaking her head. "There's a lot of weird politics to it, Lily. But there's no point keeping it from you. Wizards can be pretty awful sometimes."

Lily sticks her lower lip. At first, she can't wrap her head around it – how can someone hate someone for something that they can't even see? That doesn't affect them in the slightest? But then she remembers all the things Petunia says, like when they passed two grown women holding hands in the street one day, and Petunia's nostrils had flared as she dragged Lily to the other side of the road, talking about the indecency of it all. Of how Petunia had barely written to her since she'd left for Hogwarts, of how their last proper conversation had been about Petunia calling her a freak.

Sometimes looking at Petunia is like looking in a mirror, like looking in a history book, like seeing what Lily was and is and could be capable of becoming. It is like losing an argument with the correct answer: can't you see, Petunia? You are trying so hard to protect me, but you are trying to force me to be something I'm not and never will be, and in the end, all you're doing is hurting me.

She feels her throat constrict, and she looks up at the ceiling to try to stop the unshed tears. Then – "Alice?" She asks in a strange voice.

"Yes?"

"Why is Frank Longbottom hiding behind that shelf and staring at us?"

Alice, to Lily's surprise, blushes and ducks her head. "Can you keep a secret?"

Her eyes are as wide as saucers. "Yes. What is it?"

"Well, I just don't want Florence to find out, because she'll tell everyone and never let me live it down, and–"

"Alice, what is it?"

Alice clenches her jaw as if that can hide all the red in her cheeks. "Frank… might have asked me out last week. To Hogsmeade."

Lily claps a hand over her mouth to muffle her squeal, because Merlin knows Madame Pince won't forgive the noise even if it's in the name of love. "Alice! That's – Was it romantic?"

"It was… polite. Chivalrous. He asked me out after Potions."

"I'm sure Slughorn will be pleased to know someone found love in his classroom." She rolls her eyes in that cute way that only an eleven year old can pull off. "You can go up on his wall of fame."

Alice grins lopsidedly. "I'll be sure to thank him at the wedding." She says sarcastically, then bites down on her lip. "Should I go talk to him?"

"I think he wants you to."

Alice seems to take a moment to think it over, then gets to her feet. "Would you mind looking after my stuff for a minute?"

But Lily doesn't see Alice again until that night, after the library's closed and she's writing a letter to Petunia by the warmth of the common room fire, her finished essay tucked away to the side, when Alice rushes over and thanks her for looking after her stuff and apologising for letting time pass her by. Lily smiles easily, as if the movement could ease some of the heaviness she feels in her chest. She is happy for her friend – she really, truly is, because she has never met a guy so lovely and considerate as Frank (then again, every guy she actually knows is eleven and a jerk) – but the letter in her hands pushes down on her like a weight.

The next week, she sees Alice holding Frank's hand in the hallway, and there is still no reply from Petunia.

29\. (It isn't the storm that makes the ocean dangerous.)

Lily had a crush on Anthony Rosier.

It lasted for approximately two days, but it absolutely consumed her for those forty-eight hours. She had thought of those sleepy green eyes – the ones he always used to dismiss her entirely, sometimes crinkle in a sneer – and that light blonde hair, that handsomely gaunt face and those dark brows. She wanted to indulge in a fantasy where he would be different, smile at her, and love her despite it all. They would sneak around, meet in broom closets late at night and enjoy the thrill of secrecy. Maybe she'd just been reading one too many of Petunia's romance novels, but the prospect was alluring.

Then the two days were up, and Lily was left with a downbuzz, shame, and the thought that maybe she's just attracted to trouble, not boys with prejudices she can't change.

And at the end of that unwritten love story, Anthony Rosier is the reason she becomes a murderer.

It is not fitting in the least, because Lily likes it when things fit, even if it's in some roundabout, ironic way, but this is just… life, simply put. The words are just a part of an impossible choice that can not stay impossible, it is just kill or be killed. The words fall out of her lips before she can think too hard about it, about how she will no longer be the same girl she was one spell ago.

Lily had looked at that face for hours – a lifetime ago now, but really it is just six years ago – so of course she recognises his face now, hidden under the mask, even if his jawline has chiseled out a little. He recognises her too, made evident by the widening of his eyes, and he hesitates when he lifts his wand. His companion is not as slow.

She is cornered, two to one, and it is her only option left.

Lily cries for days after, curls into bed in between a sandwich of Peter and Dorcas, who hold her and pet her hair until she cries herself out. They tell her random things about their days, about their childhoods, about their opinions on different Italian foods, just to spare her from having to think about a heart that is cracked by a curse. James holds her tight and pets her hair, feeling the sobs wrack her body and just lets her be.

If there had ever been a way she could have backed out of this war, it is long gone now.

30\. (And the end is unknown, but I think I'm ready as long as you're with me.)

She looks beautiful, Lily thinks, and she wishes her mother was there to see it. But she isn't, and that's that.

She smooths down her white dress with shaking hands, filled to the brim with nervous anticipation and happiness. There's a bit of sorrow in there, too, because her father isn't there to walk her down the aisle and her sister isn't even bothering to show up. It almost dredges up an overwhelming sense of loss; that in order to get her life of happiness, she has to give up so, so much.

There's also the fact that she feels like she's wearing a different set of bones, and because of this, she is so undeserving to wear this dress. How can she keep a white dress clean when she had been covered in blood only a month ago? When she had murdered a man to save herself? That she might be able to wash it off with peroxide, cold water, and a second wash, maybe even burn the whole damn thing, but she cannot say the same for the blood on her hands?

She feels like she's only the stones of what was once a city, but that's still enough to build a home.

"Wow, Lily." Marlene breathes. Lily had told her bridesmaids to wear whatever they want, even if it is ridiculous, and so Marlene's tall and slim figure is wrapped in a bright yellow dress. Lucky bitch can even go strapless. Her dark hair is braided back, and she has a swoop of eyeliner to accentuate her dark, dark eyes. "You look so beautiful. No offence, because you always look beautiful."

"Jeez, Marls, that wasn't offensive until you said 'no offence'." Lily replies with a buzz of electricity.

Everything Marlene has left unsaid trembles in the curve of her mouth. She smiles brilliantly, even though she is trying so hard not to.

"Come here." Lily says, walking forward to embrace Marlene.

"No, no. You're going to ruin your hair." But she hugs her back just as tightly anyway.

"Is this touching moment over?" Mary interrupts with her hands on her delicate hips. Her face is too intense to be relaxed. "I have to put more blush on you."

"Why, though?" Lily whines as she pulls away from Marlene. "I'm ginger. I'm already bright red."

"If you want to go out there looking like a ghost with all that fountation on, then be my guest."

Lily sits back down in the little stool, grumbling all the while. "If anything goes wrong, I'm going to blame my lack of breathing on the dress."

Mary dusts the rouge against her cheeks, her tongue sticking out a little in concentration, and Lily does her best to be a willing patient – and that means no squirming. She closes her eyes, trying to focus on anything that will get rid of the butterflies in her stomach, from white chocolate covered slices and how much she loves her three best friends, and forces her hands to steady. Marlene comes behind her and tries to pin more of her curls back.

"It's just the vows," Lily starts, and Marlene shushes her.

"It'll all be fine, and then afterwards we'll all have a good happy cry and party the night away."

"Party the morning away, too." Mary adds, then steps back to take a good look at Lily's face. Lily's hands pluck restlessly at her white dress. "Ugh, you look so good. All the thanks to me. And your genetics, I guess."

"Thanks." Lily says, grinning a little.

Dorcas chooses this moment to burst through the door and do a little wiggle. She wears a flowing, coral dress that doesn't clash too badly with her dark hair, and it swishes around angelically. "We're good to go, ladies."

"Wait!" Lily cries, and comically reaches to grab her polaroid. "I need a picture to commemorate the last time none of us were bound by husbands."

Mary says, "Lily, you've practically been married to him since seventh year."

"The idea of husbands! The sexist one, where they never help clean up and you end up slaving away over children with no pay or acknowledgement!"

"James would never do that to you!" Dorcas laughs.

"Yeah, but you lot aren't so lucky."

"Marlene is." Mary says. "She has all the luck."

Marlene pulls a face, and Lily tells them to all get together to take the picture.

"Wait!" Mary exclaims. "Who's going to take it?"

"Are you a witch or not?" Lily challenges with a smile, setting the camera up against the counter before the mirror, then standing amongst her friends.

"You sure act like one, sometimes." Dorcas points out.

Mary goes to argue, but Lily waves her wand to charm the timer, and they all settle down to beam wildly at the camera together. The background will be a war, but the picture won't show it. Instead, it is just three wild, beautiful, and happy girls, leaning against one another and laughing like they have no other care in the world.

"Okay, for real, Lily," Dorcas's voice is laced with impatience, "you have to get out there before he thinks he's getting jilted at the altar!"

There is a squeal of excitement from Mary as she links her arm through Lily's, one last time as children, and they follow Marlene and Dorcas's lead outside the door and towards the entrance to the church. The light is dim through the hallway, and she watches the way their dresses move in the low-lighting. Her nerves grow stronger every time she looks at the bright light of the entranceway up ahead.

The music starts. Lily wants to laugh.

Dorcas and Marlene go first. They throw rose petals gracefully as they walk, though she sees Dorcas throw some directly at Fabian when he whistles. The pews are full of people – mostly James's relatives or people who his mother invited, because for some reason he is related to a whole bunch of saps and Euphemia wants to show them off to everyone she's ever met.

Mary looks at her. "You ready?"

She is.

They step forward together and Lily cannot keep the grin off her face. She waves at the people they pass, because she is not made to be serious, even if it's the so-called 'biggest day of her life'. Why be traditional when her family are not here to hold her to it?

Alice and Frank Longbottom smile at her from the edge of one pew, as they had insisted that they provide the auror protection she didn't know a wedding deserved. Greta Catchlove is there with her new beau, her blonde hair waving down her back as she smiles at Lily. Euphemia and Fleamont sit up in the front row, looking as elegant as ever, and Euphemia is already blotting away tears of happiness as she passes them.

And then there is James. He stands next to Sirius, who is standing next to Remus, who is standing next to Peter. James's grin looks like it is permanently carved into every inch of his face.

Mary passes Lily off to James. "Have fun. Keep it PG, will ya?" Mary winks, then goes to stand beside Marlene and Dorcas.

"Jerk." Lily says without any heat. James takes and squeezes her hands. His eyes seem to ask 'cold feet?'

He had asked that a lot during their preparation, as if he is trapping her into it too early, but there is always a 'never' on the tip of her tongue. In many ways, this is exactly like she's always dreamt, and that's the funny thing, the way it seems to be so much more than anything she's ever wanted from her wedding. Her mother is gone, her father before that, and Petunia has been lost to her for perhaps even longer. But the people who are here… perhaps they are her family now, too.

James looks at her with such tenderness in his eyes. "Cold feet?"

"Never." She says, without skipping a beat.


End file.
